A lack of organizational skills and commitment has led to a very sparse gaming experience so far this year. People are more concerned with family affairs, new jobs, and illness than with gaming. The hiatus has drawn me back to one of my beloved games from yesteryear: the MARVEL SUPER HEROES Role-Playing Game by TSR, Inc. In light of the work I did recently in restoring the DC Heroes RPG rules, I’d like to compare and contrast the systems a bit. It helps to have a slight working knowledge of these systems to follow along.

First off, the style of the two games is vastly different – probably owing to the way that the comics themselves were produced. Whereas the DC Heroes role-playing game (hereafter referred to as DCHRPG) explains the rules in a concise and easy-flowing way, almost condescendingly at some points, the Marvel Super Heroes RPG (hereafter referred to as MSHRPG) tends to make bad puns and has a jocular, more familiar writing style, almost as if smilin’ Stan Lee himself were narrating the text. This is not to say that the MSHRPG rules are clearly written; the presentation can be confusing when it keeps referring players to various other sections of the rulebook for clarification.

The rules for both are pretty well-explained. Both games had 1st editions which were very simplistic and rife with rules contradictions or poorly conceptualized stats. For example, the MSHRPG had only 12 levels of power to explain their character’s abilities and powers, ranging from Feeble to Class 1000, while the DCHRPG had 50+ levels of power, each numerical representations and referred to as Attribute Points (APs). Not much exceeded the 50 AP “Superman strength” level except perhaps planetary-size entities or deities. The difference here was that Marvel had a defined upper limit – DC did not. Obviously, this makes the Marvel characters seem underrated and the DC Heroes seem overrated. This WAS the case, and caused both games to spawn 2nd editions which were both very popular in the late 1980s. Marvel expanded the ranges slightly, adding a Shift Y and Shift Z column (just for an enraged Hulk), and also split the high-end entities into more powerful categories by adding a Class 3000, Class 5000, and Beyond column to the Universal Table. DC reduced all the values for it’s high-end characters, corresponding to similar reductions in the Post-Crisis DC Comics. Now the “Superman benchmark” was 25 APs of Strength, and everything was modeled on that. Still, the systems were miles apart in the power levels represented by the characters – and rightly so!

Marvel has always been a grittier, more pseudo-realistic representation of super-heroes than DC. Whereas Superman and Batman existed in mythical cities which were both based on New York, the Marvel heroes actually lived and worked IN New York City. DC Heroes were far beyond the range of mortal man, while Marvel heroes dwelt on the foibles, quirks, and weaknesses of humanity blessed or cursed with powers that were strange and unusual. The strongest DC Hero (Superman) was a near-god in all things, a hero one could aspire to; the strongest Marvel hero was a mindless monster (Hulk) who was, in reality, a meek scientist with anger issues. The face of DC in the 1960s was the Batman, a heroic vigilante who frightened criminals, was an avenging angel of Gotham, and whose secret ID was a multi-millionaire playboy. The face of Marvel was Spider-Man, a heroic vigilante who was maligned by the press but was the “everyman hero” of the common man, and in his secret identity a struggling college student with an ailing aunt and girl troubles. While DC epitomized their heroes as godlike icons, Marvel showed everyone the banal nature of humanity, even those with super-powers.

The power levels of the DCHRPG had to model characters from Robin to Superman. This is a bigger problem than you would think. Think about the villains falling in the mid-range of these power levels. Either they would break Robin like a toothpick or break their hands against the unyielding might of Superman. There’s little comparison when one enters combat. Although the heroes were expertly modeled at the high-end of the power spectrum, the lower end tended to look identical except for their costumes. Heroes like Green Arrow and Batman are practically identical since they are both masters of their chosen attack forms, both investigators, and both millionaires with lots of gadgets. Martial Artists types (Black Canary, Nightwing, et.) all tend to look identical as well. Any non-powered hero would inevitably resemble any other of the myriad non-powered super-heroes without much variation except for costume design. On the other hand, the MSHRPG tried too hard to keep the mystique of the “common man hero” and made all their low-level heroes very varied in ability, but the high-end was basically lumped into a stat-range of 2-3 numbers from Monstrous to Class 1000 (The Shift columns were originally only meant to represent a raging Hulk’s strength increase – later used as ability ranks). They represent low-end heroes very well, and the “hit point-like” stat known as Health makes more sense at this level. However, when you engage a powered villain with one Amazing or higher-level stat, you tend to fall unconscious quickly if you’re playing a character like Captain America (who could probably take 3 hits maximum).

Marvel is also more absolute in attack/defense resolution. In DCHRPG, combat is balanced by making it possible for that lowly hero to make a telling blow once or twice on a “brick” villain by allowing doubles to be re-rolled and added to the combat roll. Marvel had no such mechanic in place – if you couldn’t penetrate a villain’s defenses because your abilities were too low, you were out of luck. On the other hand, Marvel stats were such that once you could penetrate the defense, unconsciousness followed soon thereafter. Everyone in the Marvel Universe seemed to have a “glass-jaw” to some attack.

Most battles you see in the comics last a few panels before something happens to break up the fight or the characters come to some realization or truce. Death is thankfully rare in both systems, and is easily prevented by spending “experience points” – in DC these are Hero Points; in Marvel these are known as Karma points. These points allow the heroes to succeed when they should fail. It’s a way to make up for the randomness of the die roll, or to prevent an unhappy circumstance from occurring in what should be heroic role-playing where the heroes  always win. But why play a game in which you can’t ever fail? That’s not so. You have a finite amount of Hero Points or Karma. Once that runs out you’re on your own. Believe me, it happens more than you think.

My one sticking point with both systems is the manner of advancement. Heroes evolve very slowly in the comics, sometimes not changing much over a period of decades. But players demand progress and a physical representation that they are doing well in the game. While running established heroes is the most fun in either system, you need true comic fans to realize what they can do to the heroes vs. what the game says you can do. For instance, you shouldn’t be able to buy off the Superman’s Drawback to Kryptonite anymore than you should give Captain America the ability to fly. These are both possible to do with the appropriate number of points, but some things are better left alone. In this aspect, both systems fail to explain why this is preferable.

My one major contrast point between the two systems is the manner in which the Gamemaster/Judge is told how to run the game. Both games come with rules about how to handle players in a super-hero genre. However, only the DCHRPG goes into depth on how to construct adventures. The MSHRPG tends to get wrapped up too much in telling how the Judge to run a game, and little on how to come up with adventures or how they should be structured. This may seem a trivial thing, but after reading several DCHRPG modules and MSHRPG modules, I can tell that the latter are much more free-form, unstructured, and less formulated than the DCHRPG modules. The former tend to be more bland, direct, and uniform in design – but they account for all the heroes’ actions and reward ingenious role-playing more than Marvel. The problem comes when trying to write your own adventures. DCHRPG gives guidelines, examples, and suggestions. The MSHRPG tells you to look at the modules and figure it out for yourselves. Whereas the DCHRPG has powers, skills, advantages, and drawbacks that all follow strict guidelines and are presented in uniform ways, the MSHRPG has powers, talents, contacts, and equipment that are basically each unique quantities with no general formulaic structure to how they are presented or used. One character’s power may be named the same as another’s, but function in a completely different manner in the game.

Still, I prefer the MSHRPG for one reason – it speaks to my “inner geek” in a fluid, familiar way. The DCHRPG is all about getting the math right and playing the odds. You still get to a point when no matter what you do, you just can’t breach the bad-guys defenses and the combat becomes an exercise in futility as you both whittle away each other’s defenses until neither side has any more Hero Points to spend. Although the same could be said about the MSHRPG, there is a point when the heroes or villains realize they “can’t possibly win” and have to make the decision to break and run or fall valiantly trying to defeat the undefeatable. Karma expenditure has no limits in the game, unlike DCHRPG. This can lead to some rather heroic moments – and some laughably improbable moments. There’s much more role-playing and drama in the Marvel universe. The DC villains are just cookie-cutter evil versions of the heroes they battle for the most part (Batman/Joker, Green Lantern/Sinestro, Superman/Bizarro, Flash/Reverse-Flash, etc.). Marvel villains are over-the-top megalomaniacs or psychotic nihilists with many weaknesses and vanities. They’re just cooler to play in a role-playing atmosphere.

Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE both systems and would highly recommend them to anyone interested in super-hero role-play. There’s just a definite difference in the feel of each. In the end I recommend going with the game system you prefer. I’ve converted heroes from Marvel into DC and found that the conversion is easy to do, but tends to cluster the characters in the 6-13 AP range for all their abilities. On the other hand, DC Heroes do NOT translate well into MSHRPG stats – you can’t model the higher-end heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, or Martian Manhunter unless you reduce their powers to those in the Marvel reality. While this may be acceptable for modern comic versions, Silver Age versions cannot be modeled at all! When you can move planetoids, survive the interior of stars, break the “time barrier” by flying fast, and see across galaxies it’s hard to model a character appropriately. I’ve come to the conclusion that NO super-hero RPG is perfect; each has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.

For fun and a great role-playing experience try the MARVEL SUPER HEROES Role-Playing Game. Ham it up – you might be pleasantly surprised. You can find the various Original Game rulebooks and modules at the Classic Marvel website (an excellent resource). You can find other versions of the game there are well, including the Advanced version and a simple d20 conversion.